Yearly Archives: 2012

Shifting Roles for Public Libraries: From Supporting Player to Community Engagement Leader

When you think of the most democratic place in your neighborhood where resources are universally available, does one government entity immediately come to mind? According to the Urban Libraries Council (ULC), the public library is an institution that has long upheld a reputation as a highly-trusted and valued public resource. Therefore, it has the capacityRead… Read more »

Should Ministerial staff reveal their affiliations when commenting on political matters online?

Much of Australia’s population doesn’t realise there is a difference between Australia’s public servants, who are employed and work for the state in an apolitical fashion, and Ministerial and other political advisers and staff, who are employed and work directly for politicians and political partie. However there is a crucial difference at the moment asRead… Read more »

CBO Weighs in on Federal Pay and Benefits – What Do You Think?

The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office just released its comparison study of Federal vs. Private Sector Pay and Benefits (http://www.cbo.gov/doc.cfm?index=12696). After all these years of thinking that we have a pay gap of about 26%, it turns out that we are overpaid and have substantially better benefits than the private sector. It’s hard to argue withRead… Read more »

What a Twitter map can and cannot tell: The Gates Foundation Twitter network

The Twitter network below was created by Marc Smith, Social Media Research Foundation. He used it in a recent workshop on Social Media Network Analysis that I organized here at Syracuse University on January 19-20. I picked it up and posted it here on my Social Media in the Public Sector blog, because it relatesRead… Read more »

Less TV, more Internet

The first Google Plus Hangout from The White House with a sitting president was watched by hundreds of thousands of people* online earlier tonight. My immediate takeaway? The forum featured real questions on significant issues, with genuine citizen-president interactions, with back and forth conversation. That was precisely the promise of the platform that I consideredRead… Read more »

Most Favored Customer Clause

GSA has a clause called the Most Favored Customer (MFC) clause. It requires the contractor to offer the government at least the best price it offered to a previous customer. GSA uses this clause for its schedules. There is no reason your agency can’t adopt this clause for its own contracts; one agency doesn’t haveRead… Read more »